Totempole
Totempole was first published in 1961 and was granted every derogatory review possible, but times have changed, and this classic gay novel is being reissued to a more accepting audience, whether gay or straight.
Stephen Wolfe is only two years old when he has his first sexual experience that will carry a secret thrill but a negative impact for almost twenty years. His father is a suggestive and brutally abusive man, so it’s not too difficult to understand Stephen’s confused emotions regarding his own sexuality. Stephen narrates for the reader his young experiences at camp, another segment depicting what he calls an obsession with his “vice.” When he is preparing for his Bar Mitzvah and even later when he develops a spiritual obsession with religion, Stephen will do everything in his power to divorce himself from his sexual compulsions, but his body betrays him over and over again.
This is the story of the evolution and culmination of this struggle that occurs with a Korean POW when Stephen is serving in the army during the Korean War. This unusual novel is definitely a remarkable work of historical fiction. No, it’s not about coming out to the world in the 1950s (that was virtually impossible at that time anyway). Stephen’s life is a tortured but honest journey during which he finally comes to accept himself as he is, mind, body, soul, and spirit and not a shadow of someone else’s thinking and acting. Numerous allusions to literature, art, politics, and more connections add to the layers of deeper meaning. A remarkable, sensitive, classic historical novel.
